Replacing
fossil fuels:
the scale of the problem

a
briefing document

Replacing fossil fuels—the
scale of the problemis the first in a series
of briefing documents on the problems of power consumption, posed by the
steady depletion of fossil fuels and most particularly of pumpable oil. One of a grouping of documents on global concerns
at abelard.org.

There are constant, ill-informed
debates and reports that suggest that we can easily replace
our fossil fuel usage by wind, or solar cell power, or
some such method. Within current technology, this is a
pipe-dream, it is impossible, it simply cannot be done.
This does not mean that we are all dooooooooomed; but
we are faced with a tremendous problem as reserves of
fossil fuel, especially cheap pumpable oil, diminish.
See World
oil resources table for details.
There is a similar table for coal
resources. As you will see, even with known
coal resources, the current situation is not nearly as
critical as it is for oil. This is probably an under-estimate
of coal reserves, as the pressure to find new reserves
has, so far, been considerably less than the pressures
posed by oil depletion.

Replacing more than half the current energy use in
the United States with solar input is somewhere between
extremely problematic and impossible. See Pimentel.
I am unconvinced that Pimentel is accounting for the
energy costs of extraction of fuel oil from bio-mass,
or for the problems specified in Note
d below. Also in this paper, Pimentel does not pay
sufficient attention to the potential contributions
from conservation nor to nuclear power.

The desire for energy is still increasing in the United
States and is vast in the rest of the world.

The population of both the United States, and of the
planet, are currently increasing .

Major inroads on this problem are possible with a
whole range of conservation and efficiency measures.
For a good primer see, for example, Lovins.
Strangely, Lovins does not appear to attend to the scale
of the problems.

In the current circumstances, there is only one technology
that comes even within shouting distance of meeting
the problems. In fact, the potential of that technology
is vastly surplus to the scale of the problem. That
technology is nuclear power generation.
The rest of the technologies together may make useful
contributions, but they are completely incapable of
coming anywhere near to tackling the scale of the energy
problem.

There are two ways of controlling population: the
Chinese methods or the Western method of education,
particularly of females. Education is, by far, the most
effective method of birth-control known. For completeness,
there are also more grim waysthe Horsemen of the
Apocalypse: disease, famine and war.

There is much talk around concerning
the hydrogen economy. I am unconvinced that
it makes any serious sense for road transport because
of inefficiencies involving weight and handling. I note
that many manufacturers are putting a lot of work into
this, but I am suspicious that this may be some luxury
or commercial vehicle market, or just some pork-barrel
project.

I am much more optimistic
concerning a methanol formation route but, with either
hydrogen or methanol, my current guess is that the power
input requirements for fuel formation are about four
to six times the current power used in vehicle
fuels. In other words, a monumentally vast expansion
of what amounts to nuclear power generation.

There are also many possibilities of lifestyle change:
smaller housing units, sharing facilities, less travelling.

A sensible change, which would also improve income
distribution, would be to apply rationing to petrol
consumption, while allowing individuals to sell their
ration in an open market.

To understand the problems in replacing fossil fuels,
it is necessary to look at several variables.

A
big power station

Therefore, a nuclear power station with a1,000 megawatt(MW) generating capability, working at 100%
capacity,
produces (8760 x 1000) or 8,760,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity
in one year.

I am taking a 1000MW (1GW)
plant as a standard unit. This I am also calling a big power station.

1 tonne oil equivalent equates to 12 megawatt hours
(MWh) electricity.
However, a tonne of oil used in a power station to generate electricity
produces about one third of this amount, that is 4 MWh electricity.
[Note: all energy uses involve inefficiencies. In this case, the efficiency
would be expressed as 33%.]

Thus, a 1000 MW power station, using oil as its
energy source, would consume
8760 x (1000 /4) = (8760 x 250) tonnes of oil in a year,
that is 2,190,000 tonnes of oil, in order to generate its full capability.[1]

In the real world, however, controllable power-generating
equipment (that uses coal, oil or nuclear fuel) only works at 80  85%
capacity, after downtimes and peak demands
are taken into account.

Note:

1

As a crude rule of thumb, one kilowatt of
installed generation capacity costs about $1,000(approximately £600,
non-PPP corrected  Jan 2003); thus, a cost of around $1 billion
for our big power station.

2

In general, required installed electric
generation capacity tends to be quoted in the region of 1kw per household.
This figure is for the electricity consumption for the household usage
and the associated industrial capacity for the purchased consumption
of households. This figure, of course, varies according to source
and to country (see right-hand column of Fuel
usage efficiency table). Thus, a big power station
would be capable of supplying approximately 1 million households.

Scale
of the problem

Buried fossil fuels are like a great bank account
from the past, from which currently we are drawing down reserves at a
horrendous and unsustainable rate through our profligate burning of fossil
products. (To the problems caused by this depletion of fossil fuel reserves
must be added the problems of the filthy mess that most fossil fuel usage
generates.)

It is important to grasp the vast quantities of
energy being used for sustaining modern civilisation. It will probably
take the reader some time, and imagination, to adjust to this. A table
providing figures for several countries in terms of big power stationsis
available here. For more numbers
and analysis, and potential costs, see The
delivery of power.

Here is a brief assessment for the United States
of America, by far the most extravagant user on the planet.

The USA is currently burning 25%
of the worlds energy usage, and doing this with about 1/20th
of the worlds population. Of course, the USA also produces 20%
plus of the world’s measured
GDP ( Gross Domestic Product). But, as you will see, the USA is far
from optimally energy-efficient.

US total power consumption is
in the region of 3 terawatts. (As usual, be careful of figures that
look highly accurate; we are often guessing within, say,
10%.)

A terawatt is one million (1,000,000)
megawatts of power. In theory, one large coal or nuclear power plant
generates 1,000 MW (1 gigawatt) of electricity.

The present USA energy requirement,
of 3 terawatts of power, is equivalent to the energy produced by about
3000 large (1000 megawatt) generating plants (i.e. three thousand
big power stations).
Recall that much of the input power to a country is burnt for heat
and transport, only some of the power is used to generate electricity.
In fact, only about one third of the input power to a country is used
to form electricity.

But the process of generating electric
power is only approximately 38% efficient. That is, it requires just
over two and a half times as much oil energy to produce the electric
energy provided.

A simple outline on the scale of energy consumption
can be foundhere.
For more detail, but less clarity, look at Pimentel.

Variation
of supplyWind energy

Electricity generation using wind is not controllable,
it depends on the vagaries of when the wind blows. On average, this is
about 35% of the time.

Wind power is unsuitable as the main energy source
for the national grid because it is intermittent. Wind power at 100% load
is still uneconomic, not only because three times as many windmills are
necessary, but also because considerable storage capacity would be required
for when the windmills are unable to generate power, because no wind is
blowing in that region.

Average power over a region
Consider a region that can be supplied with electricity from a 1000 MW
generating plant. Assuming that this is a controllable power generator,
it can be regarded as 80% efficientit can be relied upon to produce
about 800MW. Remember that in an advanced country, there will be many
such generating plants, and that they will not tend all to be operational
at the same time. Homes, factories, power stations in the region are all
connected to a national grid. Thus, if one power plant is
having problems, other plants connected to the grid will normally take
up the load, thus maintaining a relatively steady supply of electrical
power.

Now come to wind and windmills. A windmill is operational
for only about 35% of the time, and if the wind does not blow in one part
of the region, it is quite probable that the wind will not be blowing
in other parts of that region. So, unlike a nuclear power station, the
production of energy cannot increased at will. Because of this lack of
flexibility in wind power, it has been estimated that only approximately
10  20% of grid power can be supplied economically and efficiently
by wind generation.

If the electricity generated by wind systems could
be stored,
then, if approximately three times the wind generating capacity desired
for peak load were installed, theoretically such a system would be satisfactory.

But another problem still remains. There are probably
not enough suitable sites to establish anything like sufficient windmills.
For more see Renewable energy: current and
potential issues by David Pimentel et al., BioScience,Vol.52
No.12, pp. 1111  1120, December 2002 (paper
also available for purchase here 
$10 US).

Demand for power is not even and steady, nor is
it completely predictable. There is greater demand for power in winter,
for heating, and there is more requirement for lighting homes, offices
and streets when the sun goes down, while a manufacturing plant may be
shut down at night. Patterns of demand may be imagined as similar to road
systemsthere are rush-hours, while at 4 a.m. the roads are nearly
empty.

A generating capacity designed to meet peak loads
will be lying idle much of the time, thus wasting resources; or, otherwise,
may be described as being economically inefficient. The ideal situation
would be to operate expensive plant 24 hours a day and every day of the
year, so that the money (capital) invested in the plant was always paying
its way.

The storage problem

If energy is not wanted immediately, for instance
to switch on a light, some means of storage of energy required for later
use has to be achieved. A battery, a dam, a gallon of petrol, a hydrogen
fuel cell, a log for the fire, or radioactive sources, are all means of
storing power/energy.

Learn to think clearly about the difference between
generating and storing power.

A power station, or a growing
tree, are means of generating usable power.

A log is a store of energy, but a power station
is not. The power station uses means such as oil or uranium to store
energy prior to using it in the generating process.

For completeness, an engine is a device that
converts energy from one form to another. Thus, a car engine converts
petrol into moving along the road, while a tree converts sunlight
into logs.

Hydrogen

You will probably hear much nonsense about
‘the hydrogen economy’.

It is vital to understand
that hydrogen is a storage system and not an energy source

Hydrogen used as a fuel faces considerable
practical and technological difficulties. With current technology,
it means transporting the hydrogen under considerable pressure which,
in turn, implies large amounts of additional weight.

In my view, if hydrogen is used as a fuel,
for a long time to come it will be combined into a more easily liquifiable
state, such as methanol.

Oil can be turned into electricity, and electricity
can be used tomanufacture
fuels that are similar to petrol,
from air and water. This process is not unlike the tree converting
air and water to logs by using the sun.

If you want a power source, it is important to
analyse the amount of input power (needed to build the source) and running
costs (needed to produce that power), and match that amount against the
power output that can be expected over the lifetime of the plant.

For example, if it took more energy to build and to
run a windmill than the energy that can be extracted during its lifetime,
then clearly the windmill is not worth making in energy terms.[2]
(This is not the case with windmills.) However, it is the
case with some projects, such as producing oil additives from corn. The energy
required to produce the oil is approximately 1.4 times the energy that can
be extracted from the resulting oil.

Putting a straw down and sucking up oil in the
Middle East, and then refining and transporting that oil to market, can
give ratios of power output/input of up to 50:1. This makes oil an exceedingly
cheap source of energy.

No power sourcing project can sensibly be undertaken
without Energy Return on Energy Investment (EROEI) assessments. Purely
financial analysis is wholly inadequate, especially where signals are
distorted by government subsidies.

Currently, we have the bank of fossil fuels bequeathed
to us from the history of the earth. It is important that this windfall
be used to build a sustainable power-generation infrastructure, while
the bank still holds ‘funds’ (oil, gas, coal, etc.). The job
would be vastly more difficult if we were to wait until the bank account
was nearly exausted and then attempt to bootstrap ourselves,
at a time when we were no longer in possession of this bounty from the
past.

An assessment of our position, based on purely
market economics, is wholly inadequate.

For more on energy return on energy investment
(EROEI), look
at this document from the World Nuclear
Association.

[With some references from Greg Hennessey, Lavigne, the Enlightenment]

Fuel
usage efficiency

The following table attempts to give some impression of the fuel-use
efficiency of various countries. The higher the number in the fourth column,
the greater the the fuel-use efficiency in that country. What is particularly
striking is the low usage efficiency of the United States.

However, there are many possibilities that could make such a table misleading.
A country producing low added-value goods or having a large subsistence
farming sector, with cheap labour inputs, could appear more energy efficient
than a country producing high-technology goods.

There are also issues such as the low monetarisation
of many less advanced countries, and the high purchasing premium on reserve
currencies, especially the $US . But a major factor must be the low taxes
on fuel in the United States, and even subsidies for fuel use; for more
see Transportable
fuels. With such apparently cheap fuel, market signals are
bound to go out that do not encourage conservation. In Europe, there are
high taxes on fuel usage, thus there are strong pressures to conserve.

There
is also an easy to follow and clearly presented report, Key
world energy statistics from the IEA. It
has recently [December, 2007] been issued by the International Energy
Agency. This report has comprehensive data tables and charts for fossil
fuels.

“Key World Energy Statistics from the IEA contains timely, clearly-presented
data on the supply, transformation and consumption of all major energy
sources. The interested businessman, journalist or student will have
at his or her fingertips the annual Polish production of coal, the electricity
consumption in Thailand, the price of diesel oil in South Africa and
thousands of other useful energy facts.”

Average electricity usage per person in
terms of required installed capacity, operating notionally at 100% capacity;
but this not as simple as it sounds. To understand why, see the integrated
power section in fossil fuel replacements.

1.37 is what is known in the trade as a fudge factor. In this case,
it is obtained as follows:
The figure from the BP table was 2,237.3 (mtoe).
After all the sums, the figure we arrived at, in big power stations,
was 3,064.7.
Therefore, 3,064.7 / 2,237.3 = 1.37. So, to save doing all the calculations
each time, you just take the figure in the BP column and multiply it
by 1.37, saving a lot of work and potential for errors.

8.76 is what is known in the trade as a fudge factor. In this case,
it is obtained as follows:
The figure from the world electricity consumption table was 504.4 billion
kilowatthours, or TWhr.
After all the sums, the figure we arrived at, in big power stations,
was 57.57.
Therefore, 504.4 / 57.57 = 8.76. So, to save doing all the calculations
each time, you just take the figure from the column for 2001 consumption
and multiply it by 8.76, saving a lot of work and potential for errors.

useful summary of nuclear nonsense

Some oft repeated allegations against nuclear power:

nuclear power is a very expensive way of generating
power, taken over the lifetime of the plant, and taking
into account construction costs.

A great deal of the cost is
the planning times and the legal challenges. This slows
the planning by (often) several years. Money costs,
both financing loans that can show no return until the
plant is up and running and vast legal costs, are a good part of the expense
of nuclear power stations.

A reasonable cost on carbon would
make nuclear power easily competitive. Remember that the
fuel for nuclear power is relatively cheap. Among other
things, you do not have to truck vast quantities of
coal around the world because you get in the order of
a million times the energy from a tonne of fuel!

The problem of finding a long term solution to storing
the nuclear waste still hasn't been solved.

Again it’s trivial. The prime
reason there is no long-term store is because the dangerous
waste is miniscule. It simply has not been economic
to build a store yet. Compared with the devastation
from coal, it is laughable.

The consequence of another major nuclear explosion would
be catastrophic.

There is just about no relationship
between nuclear explosions and nuclear power (other
than governments that use them to feed the bomb industry).
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), if used
sanely, does very well,
controlling this. The consequencces of the Chernobyl
disaster have been greatly exaggerated, and Chernobyl
was run by a socialist
empire. Safety and building standards were next
to non- existent. There is more radiation coming from
coal power stations and slag heaps. Nuclear power is
the safest
power available on direct comparisons by a country
mile.

It is Lefties that spread most of
the disinformation, but I expect the filthy fossil fuel
industry does not want the competition!

Note that politics and corruption
infect everything. The quoted prices, like all government
prices, do not bear close examination. Then there are
‘not in my back yard’ attitudes. China can
build a plant in about five years, or better. The West
talks and acts in terms of ten years plus!

Sometimes, you will come across
references quoted in joules. The relevant scale
for the sizes we are talking about are exajoules,
that is one quintillion joules, or 1018 joules,
that is one followed by eighteen zeros, that is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000.
One exajoule is approximately 23.5 million tonnes of
oil, that is equivalent to about 10.73 big power stations,
I tend to think of it as 10 big power stations.
You may also come across gigajoules. A gigajoule is
109 joules. This is about 278 kwh electricity,
or 30 litres gasoline, or 45 kg of coal. A barrel of
oil is about 6 gigajoules, and a tonne of oil is about
45 gigajoules.
I hope that you will be pleased to know that beyond
this note, I will not be talking about joules, or gigajoules,
or exojoules.

This does not mean that we would
not manufacture an energy-producing device, such as
a battery, which would cost far more in energy to produce
than the energy that is extracted from it. It is often
decided to produce such devices for their convenience
utility, but it is not a means for producing energy
in the first place.